2012 patent rankings: IBM on top again, Apple and Google surge

Sarah Frier

IBM racked up more US patents than any other company for the 20th straight year, helped by increasing contributions from its researchers in other countries.

IBM's 6478 patents in 2012 mark a record for the company, research firm IFI Claims Patent Services said. South Korea's Samsung and Tokyo-based Canon ranked second and third. Google took a spot in the top 50 for the first time, with 15 more patents than Apple.

About 30 per cent of IBM's patents were produced by inventors outside the US, up from 22 per cent in 2010. Research centres in Germany, Japan, Canada, the UK and Israel were especially productive, the New York-based company said. The percentage of its patents coming from overseas is expected to continue growing as newer labs in Brazil and Kenya ramp up, said Manny Schecter, IBM's chief patent counsel.

"Intellectual property flows from where markets are flourishing," he said. "You'll see upticks in the amount of technology and intellectual property which we generate outside the US"

IBM's flow of patents lets the computer-services giant produce about $US1 billion a year in licencing revenue. The intellectual property also gives it the freedom to move into new businesses with less risk of being sued over technology.

Qualcomm's bounty

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Still, some other technology companies get much higher royalty revenue from a smaller number of patents. Qualcomm, a designer of mobile-phone chips, made $US6.33 billion in technology licencing in the most recent fiscal year — even though it's not in the top 10 of IFI's list.

Apple, whose innovations helped revolutionise computing and mobile phones, also isn't one of the biggest recipients of US patents. The maker of the iPhone and iPad spends about half as much as IBM on research and development.

Even so, Apple did make gains in this year's list, jumping to No. 22 from 39th place. Google, Apple's biggest rival in smartphone software, rose to 21st place. Both companies are embroiled in lawsuits over intellectual property — along with other mobile-phone makers such as Samsung — giving them more incentive to increase their store of patents.

Broader trend

Companies are applying for more US patents in general, Mike Baycroft, chief executive of Madison, Connecticut-based IFI, said. This year, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a total of 253,155 patents — a record.

IBM, which has more than 430,000 employees worldwide, invests about $US6 billion in R&D each year. With more than 67,000 patents since 1993, about half of which are active, it is easier for the company to avoid courtrooms, Schecter has said. Eight thousand inventors in 46 states and 35 countries contributed to last year's patents.

The latest crop of patents underscores the kinds of markets IBM is trying to enter. In computer security, the company has a patent for blocking attacks from an intruder to a network. In the realm of IBM's Smarter Planet initiative, the company was granted one patent for predicting traffic patterns using GPS in vehicles and another for remotely monitoring and adjusting power usage across an electricity grid.

The patents also included a technique for providing precise answers to natural-language questions. This is the technology that IBM uses for Watson, the computer that beat humans on the Jeopardy! quiz show and is now being applied to health care and finance.

"Our future intellectual property strategy is a reflection of our business strategy," Schecter said. "We like being the leader and will continue to be very aggressive."